Israeli startup Enigma has emerged from stealth with a $71 million Seed round to build foundation AI models, software and interfaces aimed at bringing advanced intelligence to physical robots. The funding underscores growing investor interest in applying AI beyond screens and chatbots into systems that operate in the real world.
## Enigma’s funding and investors
The Seed round was led by Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital, with participation from Conviction Partners and technology executives and researchers from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Thinking Machines, xAI and Cognition. Enigma said it will use the capital to expand research and engineering teams, increase computing infrastructure and GPU capacity, and accelerate development of its robotics software platform.
## Founders and origins
Enigma was founded less than a year ago by CEO Jonathan Jacobi and CTO Gal Niv, who previously served together in Israel’s Unit 8200 military intelligence technology unit. Jacobi’s background includes roles at Microsoft and Check Point with a focus on cybersecurity research and AI-driven systems; Niv worked on advanced cybersecurity and technology projects and became one of the youngest cyber operations managers in Unit 8200. The founders say those experiences shaped their view that robotics is the next major frontier for AI.
## Technology focus and approach
Enigma is developing foundation AI models specifically for robots, along with software and user interfaces intended to make robotic systems easier to deploy and operate across different environments. The company says it has created new approaches to training robotics AI that reduce the need for large amounts of manually collected physical data and help models generalize across robots and settings. It is also building intuitive interfaces so non-specialist users can interact with robots without specialized technical knowledge.
## Early use cases and platform plans
Enigma is already working with partners in industries including entertainment, retail and healthcare, and plans to broaden deployments to additional robotic environments. As part of its public launch, the company intends to introduce a platform that will let users remotely interact with AI-powered robots in real time — controlling robots, manipulating physical objects and testing how models interpret and respond to human instructions.
Enigma frames its mission as enabling AI systems that can “understand, adapt to, and operate in the physical world,” a challenge investors and founders say remains technically demanding despite rapid advances in language and image AI.
